So, how important is heritage? It's a bit rich - and I use the term advisedly given the sums of money involved - that plans to ditch Cardiff's traditional blue kit have been announced to coincide with the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. Tradition counts for a lot in Britain, but not in Malaysia it seems.
Does the colour of a kit really matter? Can you imagine Manchester United or Liverpool adopting blue? Or West Ham ditching the famous Claret & Blue?
Let's face it, we changed our kit to claret shirts with blue flashes a couple of seasons back, and the fans swallowed it. I still look back in horror at some of our kit variations and, if I had my way, we would revert to the old shirt modelled by Peters above and stick with it forever. Perhaps, for the sake of marketing, the shirts could be supplied with moth eggs, forcing us to buy a new shirt every season!
But how much is tradition worth? What would you rather have, the Claret and Blue kit or a squad equipped to challenge for a top six place in the table? We compromised with Allardyce so is the kit more important than the club's soul?
I sympathise with Cardiff fans angry about the change but red is the national colour of Wales so seems more fitting than blue anyway. And if it is a passport to the Prem perhaps it is a sacrifice worth making.
26 comments:
Any colour is fine with me apart from black and brown. J Terry Barking
Had we not been £50m in debt then maybe we could afford to turn it down, but if it wasnt for the malaysians we would be in admin by now. For me its a small sacrifice. We will always have our history and soul, a colour change can't change that. It was a bigger loss losing ninian park but you have to move on in football.
I'm probably alone in thinking Peters looks like Collison in that pic!
How you doing HF?
Anony-mouse says,
I know some will say we've changed our name, colours and ground before so what's the problem. But that was in our formative years before the previous colours etc had had time to become our traditions.
I feel truly sorry for Cardiff fans- pretty scummy some of them but no one deserves this to be happening to their club.
I don't that you necessarily have to choose between success and tradition. However if we were offered heap loads of cash if we'd ditch our colours and crossed hammers I'd settle for an unsuccessful little team that had kept its credibility and dignity. If we took the money and changed who we are then we would cease to be West Ham, just as Cardiff are about to cease being Cardiff.
Hi TIS, I'm good, how are you?
Bit rich coming from you Anonymouse given the way you defended Doctor Evil!
Anony-mouse says,
i know i'll live to regret this but f*ck it, i'll bite. Pray tell HF- what are you going on about now?
Because I support from very far away and did not grow up with the club, I cant feel the same level of attachment to the colors. What I want is a healthy, prosperous club. That is more important to me than a kit, the ground, anything. By any means necessary.
Driven slightly mad by those morons on WHTID, thought I'd pay you a visit.
LOL Anonymouse. You know, some of us believe we support a special club, a club rooted in Greenwood, Lyall, Moore, Hurst, Peters and Brooking; and some of us were happy with Allardyce come what may, just so long as we won football matches!
Dave, you're American, enough said. If you lot owned London, the Tower would have been pulled down because there's not enough glass, St Pauls would have been razed to make way for a mall and Westminster Abbey would be a McDonald's franchise!
TIS, good to have you back for as long as it takes to drive you even madder!
Emotional rubbish. I go to watch my local team and couldn't give a toss if West Ham changed their colours or even their name. Material colours are something that women worry about you tart!
Anony-mouse says,
And some of us know that we support a special club and were happy that last year we had a proper manager for the first time since Pardew. One who got us back to where we all believe that special club belongs.
Like lots of Allardyce detractors you've gone very quiet lately HF. I know you're not won over and never will be, but are biding your time til the tide inevitably turns again and then it'll be open season on him again. Your views on him, like your views on Parker, Noble etc, once formed are set in stone.
I've looked back at some of your old articles and our tear ups about Allardyce. Blimey, it was extreme. You and others wanted him sacked and replaced with just weeks to go in the season. I wondered where we'd be now if that had happened.
Rcognising and loving our club's traditions and supporting our current manager are by not mutually exclusive. You mention Lyall- a genuine great. You rightly revere him, as do I. But he was pragmatic too when he had to be. The last time we won something was under him and I was lucky enough to be there. He surprised the fans and the footballing world that day by playing 4 5 1 that could morph into a 4 3 3. Sound familiar? And I'm pleased to say that just like this season it worked, so this special club of ours now has a better chance of developing and maybe giving us more special days in the future.
Allardyce is no Lyall or Greenwood, but he's as capable as anyone else we've had since those their days. Not that I'm expecting you to agree with me :)
Anony-mouse says,
9.06- You're in a very small minority in your views and that's cos you're wrong.
USA Dave- I know you're pretty much saying what 9.06 is saying but (and I'm not knocking you here mate) I think that maybe because as you say you support from far and didn't grow up with the club. I presume you are American and grew up there- please tell me if I'm wrong on that. But I'm just wondering if that means you have grown up in a culture where sporting franchises can and do just up sticks and move 100s of miles to another part of the country. That may well make you more used to and perhaps sympathetic to major changes. Just wondering Dave.
Here, most of us are very atached to the history, including the ground we play in and the colours and the name. We may be old stick in the muds but it's part of the nature of the average supporter in this country.
How did you get into West Ham in the first place Dave?
HF, I am deeply hurt. McDonalds!?!?
Very un-PC.
Subway is the in thing now. Just imagine a large Eat Fresh banner draped over Buckingham Palace with a photo Charles eating a foot-long Philly Cheesesteak. Now that would be progress.
Hi all great to read all your posts and I still believe the WHU is more religon than football club. I love slick passing football but we have to be honest we have been getting turned over for years and the talk of the 'west ham way' has had a hollow ring to it for years & we were in dange of becomig a laughing stock.I went to Upton Pk last season and did not always enjoy what I saw barnsley & Peterborough spring to mind but they were wins not losses. In truth aladyce has restored some pride back into my team. dont forget the brighton & cardiff games at the tail end of the season. I do hope to see us consolidate inthe EPL and play some ggod stuff but I agree with Sam when he says' when you play Arsenal away you have to frustrate them and nulify them + hit them onthe break or lose 4--0 playing 4-4-2' Great to be back up. Bristol Hammer
I actually disagree with my good friend Dave, though we are both American and did not know of West Ham as children. In adopting the team as our football team, we adopted the tradition, just as the more proper English supporters did. They just did it as children, heavily influenced by family and geographic ties. We did it because the guy dating the cute girl who lived accross the hallway in USA Dave's apartment building happened to hail from East London! Whatever the reason, we bought in, lock, stock and barrel, as they say here in Texas, and that includes the tradition, good and bad, and all that makes the club unique. I very much want us to challenge for the top places. I very much want, in Dave's words, a healthy, prosperous club. But no, I am not willing to take the cash of some fabulously wealthy owner if that owner is not willing to embrace the tradition of the club. Changing the colors would be a rejection of that tradition, as would changing Bubbles. Build (or move into) a larger park, I can live with (though I am against the OS unless retractable seats can be placed over the track). But certain things: the name, the colors, the song, the academy, are non-negotiable. Without them, the Hammers are no longer the Hammers.
P.S. HF, I've had a Big Mac in Westminster Abbey, and I suspect the ghosts inhabitating that building would support a small, but tasteful, concession stand in Poet's Corner! :-)
Mouse (22:17)
Yes, I think you have given a very good summary of what is going on.
HF nailed his colours to the mast so far as concerns BS at a very early stage and his ship is certainly not for turning.
At the slightest opportunity he will go for BS with all guns blazing. The water has been muddied at the moment because BS has got us back in the Premier league and most of the noise HF makes will fall on deaf ears. It will get noisy again when things go wrong.
In the meantime HF prefers sadly to dwell on the misfortunes of other clubs. Just take a look at his recent posts.
Most of the other blogs are speculating on potential transfer targets. Jack Sullivan is suggesting on his twitter account there is about £20m to spend on 5 players. It would be good to speculate who they might be, but that does not seem appropriate on this site unless of couurses the likes of Joey Barton are on the list.
Already done that. Try to keep up! As for Allardyce, I give credit when it is due and we looked pretty good towards the end of the season - play off final apart!
Per JS - Jussi J (bolton GK) to sign tomorrow and bids of £8m have ben made for 2 foreign strikers. Who might they be?
Mouse, as Jon says I got infected by the Weet Ham Virus by accident, in 1991. My neighbor in my apartment building in Manhattan met a guy on a plane. He was an East London native, season ticket holder along with his dad and brother. When he would visit we would go to the local bars and wait for results on a short wave radio. I loved football, having a Cosmos season ticket for many years, and next thing you know Im looking for West Ham results in The New York Times. My first game was at Anfield in 1994. Nil-nil draw. Dicks saw red, I believe. "And we're better than you, ten men" rang out. My wife and I went to two games on our honeymoon. I may jot live there, but I am West Ham through and through now.
To some degree you are right, Mouse. Historically we have seen teams literally move across the country. The most famous being baseball's Dodgers moving from Brooklyn to Los Angeles. It happened before I was born (Im 47), and I still get angry when I think about how betrayed Dodger fans felt. So perhaps Im contradicting myself, although the changes proposed (OS) and the ones theorized (colours) are in my opinion less traumatic than moving 3000 miles. My point was that if such changes would better the club then the heritage itself could be protected. West Ham actually gives me a lot of joy. I truly love this damned club, even if I know it could one day drive me to the point of clinical madness.
So I guess what Im saying after all that cackling is that whatever can benefit our club Im OK with.
Never mind the Dodgers Dave, Wimbledon were uprooted and moved to a hologram city called Milton Keynes; and if Sullivan and Gold have their way, West Ham will be felled on Green Street and replanted in Stratford!
Anony-mouse says,
Thanks USA Dave. It was interesting to see how you'd ended up supporting the team we patently both love.
I don't agree with you about changing the colours etc but I understand your reasoning mate. And yes I agree that moving 3,000 miles would be even worse than any other proposed changes.
Btw as an aside, you are not the only person on here called Dave who happens to be 47. F*ck. Seperated at birth? :)
23.54-
Meant to mention this in my last post but you're absolutely right. I think like a lot of us HF thinks he's cleverer than he is and that no-one can see through it. Even in his reply to you he's begrudging about Allardyce- we both know that he won't ever be fulsome in his praise. HF's mind remains firmly closed.
HF- Got to say the constant Leeds stuff is becoming ultra tedious now. Yes, I know I don't have to read them, and I don't generally but you shouldn't have to sift through tons of stuff to find WHU stuff on a WHU blog. If you havn't already, you'll lose people if you carry on as you are. That probably won't matter to you because as always it's all about the hits and riled Leeds fans give you that en masse don't they? Please don't say that you're doing it cos there's not a lot going on with us cos there is- certainly at least as much as there is going on at Leeds, a club none of us give a flying f*ck about unles we're playing them.
So 0955, what was your opinion of Allardyce before he joined? Did you admire the way Bolton and Blackburn played? I have tried to be fair, balanced and honest throughout. When we appeared to be marching to automatic promotion, I warned that we were in a false position, and so it proved. When Allardyce employed negative formations and tactics at home I was critical, and it was only when Vaz Te was employed more positively that performances and results changed for the better.
Where do I sit with Allardyce now? On the fence. He got us up and deserves credit for that, albeit the division is a shit division as the finishing positions of the three relegated teams proved. Most importantly for me, the qulaity of our football improved in the final weeks of the season - at home to Brighton, away to Leicester and in the two semifinal games against Cardiff. If Allardyce reverts to long ball type, I will be critical; if we play decent football, I will praise him. But that's the position I took last season.
With regard to the Leeds posts, ignore them if you don't like them. There are far more West Ham threads than Leeds threads!
Anony-mouse says,
That was me at 9.55 HF- forgot to put my name to it cos I'm a donut.
Be honest HF, you're not on the fence re Allardyce are you. As 23.54 and myself pointed out you're just keeping quiet now cos the time ain't right for your views.
If you do give him praise it's begrudging and doesn't last for long before you revert to type. An example? After one of those games you mentioned above, Leicester away, you praised the performance but then immediately ran a critical thread wondering if Sam's alleged conservatism in that game had cost us. It was relentless and vicious.
Before he came, my opinion of Allardyce was that he was someone I wouldn't have wanted until January of last year when we desperately needed a motivator like O'Neill or an organiser like Sam. It was evident that your man Grant had neither of those two qualities. In fact what did he have except for a lot of friends in high places and some pretty, erm, interesting ways of spending quality time away from his wife. Allardyce or O'Neill would have kept us up last year. End of.
Part of Allardyce's problem is that a lot of us want someone raised in the West Ham way. But who is there? Martin Allen, Paul Ince. No me neither. Hughton- good manager, but he didn't have the personality to get the Dave's to shut the f*ck up, which was one of Allardyce's biggest achievements this season. What about Paulo, who crazily you wanted interviewed for the job just before the end of the regular season- seriously HF, how mental was that as an idea. Yet you and loads of others were panicking and screaming for this to happen. The last thing that we will ever need is an untried, unstable Mussolini admirer who is such a drama queen that he apparently nearly walked out on Swindon just two months ago? If he acted like that at a less pressurised club when his team were top of the league then how the f*ck would he cope at West Ham?
I didn't really want Il Duce interviewed. You mustn't take all I say as gospel! You are right, I was critical of our negativity over the last 15 minutes against Leicester because we needed to put Southampton under pressure and didn't. But I did praise the performance. You yourself admitted that I became less vitriolic as the season entered the final lap - because Allardyce changed his approach which is what I had called for all season. I remain uncomfortable with him as our manager but I am, honestly, on the fence with a spike rammed up my arse. I hope upon hope that Allardyce does good business over the summer and surprises us with a team that plays its way to a mid table position.
Anony-mouse says,
Thanks to you HF I've now got this horrible vision of you on that fence with a nastily impaled derriere. Frankly you've put me right off me din-dins.
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